


Break

by FleetingWonderland



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: lady friendships are so important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:00:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetingWonderland/pseuds/FleetingWonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't stop crying and and there's a crowd forming and Elena would usually be one to keep up with her whole 'calm and cool' persona, the competitive, heartless girl who's Nikita's perfect match on and off the ice. Right now though, she feels like her heart is shattering into a little tiny pieces and pricking her insides.</p><p>Elena cries, Nathalie consoles, Anna advises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break

**Author's Note:**

> Real people, not real events.  
> Hodgepodge writing, because I didn't intend for this to be this long.

Elena has never broken easily.

She moved to the United States, far away from her mother, when she was young.

She didn't speak a word of English when she arrived in Michigan.

She broke up her partnership with Nikita at age 13 because she _knew_ that she deserved better than him constantly looming over her, arguing with her, not listening to her.

But it's different this time.

* * *

 

It's the World championships, and it's the morning free dance, and Elena is crying.

Like, full on sobbing, snot, the works. She can't stop and and there's a crowd forming and Elena would usually be one to keep up with her whole 'calm and cool' persona, the competitive, heartless girl who's Nikita's perfect match on and off the ice. Right now though, she feels like her heart is shattering into a little tiny pieces and pricking her insides.

Ekaterina's told her before that even though she knows that Elena's a great person, she wants to stay clear of her during competition, because "Lena, you look like you're ready to cut someone with your skate 24/7. And then maybe tackle Nikita to the ground."

She knows she and Nikita and Nikolai's whole mess has been the topic of so many discussions that she didn't care when she caught Anna and Luca talking about her with Kaitlyn and Andrew backstage in Sochi. Not even when she hears from Adelina that she's overheard even Tatiana and Ksenia talking about her and Nikolai's improper relationship. Not even when she even hears that Nikita's bragged about her 'falling into bed with him again' at Nationals to Ruslan and Dmitri.

The only one on the Russian team who doesn't talk about it is Yulia and that's only because she's only fifteen and too focused on her skating and has an even steelier resolve than Elena herself.

(The pictures Yulia posts on her VK with cherry blossoms and teddy bears do not make up for her death glare and silent 'are you kidding me' looks that she paints on during every interview.)

 

Nathalie, sweet Nathalie, is beside her, consoling her in Russian and Anna skates over too, asking in heavily accented English where her skate guards are, that she and Nathalie and Elena are going to go where people aren't staring at her from all angles, where she can't see Nikita yucking it up with Viktoria - that dirty, lying traitor - on the other side of the rink, where he's chasing her around and she's laughing.

She's still trying to look back at them in a glare as Nathalie leads her off the ice, Fabian skating up to the boards and looking on in concern before she waves him off after a quick conversation in hushed French. By her tone of voice, Elena can tell it's a grim situation, one Fabian - hilarious, handsome Fabian - can't joke the tension out of.

When she gets to the door to the locker room, Anna is already standing there, holding her black skate guards.

(" _Black, Lena, black so we're intimidating_ ", Nikita had said with a handsome smile and she had heartily agreed when they had gotten back together because pink was too girly for him and green didn't look good on her and they had to coordinate, because Nikolai wanted them to.)

In fact, she thinks the guards very accurately depict the color of his heart. Black as charcoal and tiny and shriveled and -

They help her inside the locker room and sit her on a bench, both women sitting on either side of her and holding her shoulders and letting her cry to them. She bursts into tears again, wiping her running nose on her black sweatshirt sleeve. Nathalie cringes but says nothing, and Anna places a hand on her shoulder, pulling her into a hug and patting her back in small circles.

"Why? Why me? How could he do this to me?" she cries into beautiful Anna's shoulder, feeling weak and helpless and horrible. "We've been together so long and now he does this to me! I... I... I won him the bronze. All of me, I give him all of me and this is how he repays me." Her voice is cracking with bitterness and anger, tears welling in her eyes and fingernails digging into her palms so deeply they may be drawing blood.

She's out of breath and incredulous but somehow she knows in the back of her mind that maybe she expected this the entire time, expected he'd let her down yet again, like he did all those years ago when all he wanted was to kiss the prettiest girl at the rink and sneer at her overly long puberty arms and acne on her hairline.

 

"Leave you?" Nathalie asked quietly, and Elena nodded. "Easy. He planned it behind your back with Nikolai after you broke up with him, the scum. Marina - Anissina, you know - always told me to be wary of a partner dating someone else, after what happened with her and Ilia. I would know, I dated Tomas all those years and me and Fabian suffered because of it."

Elena bites her lip, because Nathalie didn't know how this felt. Nathalie had always said how she and Fabian skating together was meant to be, something that was unchanging and infallible despite their nasty breakup years earlier and Nathalie's harem of beautiful men who she captivated for a while and then left, flitting away lightly and never guiltily. Nathalie and Fabian were each other's rocks, and she was barely more than a worm on Nikita's fishhook, because he got what he wanted with her through throwing her into the flames and hoping for something in return.

Nathalie and Fabian were friends, as were Anna and Luca, something Elena and Nikita hadn't been in quite a long time.

They were many things, Elena tried to realize through the tears and tissues shoved under her nose by Anna, and dirty glares across the locker room by Kaitlyn Weaver and Alexandra Paul decked out in full Canadian maple leaf regalia, they were friends and enemies and lovers and they were too much and not enough and she didn't know what to do.

"What are you going to do?" Anna asks somberly, basically reading Elena's thoughts and pushing a piece of stray hair away from Elena's face and wiping her cheeks of tears with a tissue. Elena thinks it's nice that Anna and Nathalie have kind of taken her under their wing, because she had kind of screwed both of them over in Sochi and yet here they were, being nice to her in her time of need.

She didn't deserve it, she thinks as another realization dawns on her.

"What about Ruslan?" Elena asks, blowing her nose and looking over at Nathalie with watery eyes. "What about him?"

"We don't think he knows yet," says Anna, looking away. "We didn't want you to know either, not until you were done competing."

Elena is angry and impressed at the same time. Angry because Nikita is a dirty user, impressed because with Meryl and Charlie and Tessa and Scott gone, she's Anna and Nathalie's biggest competition. They wanted to only win if she was at her best, she figures out. It's surprisingly kind, because Nathalie has already announced she and Fabian are retiring after this, and Anna and Luca are rumored to be thinking about leaving too.

"Don't... Tell him, Elena," Nathalie says carefully, choosing her words with all possible respect. "Don't break his heart now."

Elena reaches for Nathalie's shoulders and pulls her into a tight hug, making Nathalie tense up, relax, and then pull back.

"Is there something else you want us to know about Nikita and you? Because I'll beat him into a pulp. Okay, I'll get Luca and Marco and Carolina to make him cry." Elena snorts at the mention of sweet, elegant Carolina ever purposely making anyone hurt, but it quickly fades and she looks at her lap somberly instead.

"We slept together again during Russian Nationals. We got... Tipsy, and I ended up in his room with him and I regret it. Especially because I heard Maxim and... Him talking about it during the award ceremony with Putin back in Russia."

"And?" Nathalie pressed.

"And he made me out to be a whore, no morals and like I'm the loosest girl at the rink. And trust me, I didn't even enjoy it with him. His cockiness on the ice is overcompensating."

Anna's eyebrows raise quickly with the implication and fall back down. She sits beside her and offers her a water bottle.

"Well, Lena... If I can call you that... What are you going to do now?" Anna quips, glancing around the locker room and cocking her head at Madison Chock, who's sitting on the floor and meditating with her earbuds blasting Lana Del Rey so loudly the trio can hear it a few feet away.

Elena swallows her anger, wipes back her tears and brushes off her gray sweatpants before standing up and turning on the heel of her skate to face Anna and Nathalie, who had been sitting on either side of her.

"I'm going to show him what a huge mistake he's making."

* * *

 

Elena doesn't break during the practice, when every touch of his sears her skin like a burn and his laugh makes her ears cringe.

She doesn't break skating the short dance, when he messes everything up like usual and she has to smile through his failure.

She doesn't break when she realizes the free dance isn't enough to save their partnership by getting another medal.

She doesn't break when they're asked to skate in the gala - a slow, romantic number where he's being too handsy again and she feels like she's thisclose to getting other skaters to throw a bucket of water on him at the end, a la Javier.

 

She only lets him see her feel anything when he suggests that she go up to his room with him after the banquet, and she whispers into his ear that she knows what he's doing, that she knows he was using her and she knows he's leaving her to train with Victoria.

Elena turns on her heel and continues taking pictures with everyone else at the banquet, leaving Nikita floored and sitting at his table, staring at his clasped palms in his lap until Carolina goes up to him and obviously begins lecturing him.

Anna wasn't kidding when she said she'd recruit team Italy to harass him, she muses as she takes a cute picture with Kaitlyn. It makes her smile even when it feels like her entire world is shattering around her.

_(She wonders how hard it is to get Italian citizenship, because they're so nice and drama-free and so different from the sexed-up, fast-passed terrifying Russian national team who glare at anyone they feel unworthy of their presence, who try and ruin each other by any means possible because the competition is just so fierce.)_

* * *

 

She goes on vacation for a while after getting back.

Nikita and Viktoria fly off to Michigan to meet with Zueva, her former coach, and she and Ruslan begin a tentative texting friendship.

He likes to send her pictures of the sunrise, because he apparently is quite the good photographer.

She sends back short little videos of her six-year-old brother doing everything from horseback riding to helping her bake cupcakes.

He sends a lot of smiley emojis and she can't help but light up whenever she sees a text from him.

It progresses to calls and they talk about skating and he rants about Viki and she spews about her hatred of Nikita. He listens to her and understands and respects her feelings, and she does the same for him.

 

"I know you loved him, Lena," Ruslan says one day during a lull in their conversation. "And I'm sorry."

She can't remember the last time Nikita said he was sorry.

"Thank you," she says, but she's choked up and it isn't enough.

"Thank you so much."

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I guess finals makes me want to do everything except for finals.
> 
> I don't really know what this is, I just really love the idea of Nathalie and Anna being like the cool aunts in figure skating and also getting people to kick Nikita's ass.
> 
> (For reference, VK is like the Russian equivalent of Facebook.)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and real people, not real events. I really hope you enjoyed.
> 
> -Mara (@nathaliepechalats on tumblr)


End file.
